General News
30 May, 2026
Settlement scheme learned from hardship
VETERAN'S VOICES: In World War I about 123,000 Australian servicemen were seriously wounded at least once, 16,000 were gassed and 1600 were diagnosed as being ‘shell-shocked’.
Out of the about 270,000 returnees, 73,000 were already on pensions by 1919 and that number had grown to 90,000 by 1920.
The horrors of frontline service left many men with a range of physical disabilities, including loss of limbs, chronic pain and breathing difficulties.
Many soldiers also suffered from long-term, but poorly understood, mental illness.
Symptoms of ‘shell shock’ (today known as post-traumatic stress disorder) included delirium, delusions, hallucinations and acute dementia.
Returned soldiers were reported to be especially susceptible to alcohol addiction, insomnia and aggressive behaviour.
Many of the soldiers were accepted into the Soldier Settlement Scheme despite having physical disabilities, injuries and chronic pain that made them wholly unsuited to farming and manual labour.
A settler, who served on the Western Front, was shot twice and gassed.
Granted a settlement block in 1923, he gave it up in 1926, ‘because… on the block I still had pains and shortness of breath, found it very hard to breathe, had to sit down for a while’.
Another settler gave up his block because the repetitive action of using a plough aggravated his ‘burnt hands caused by an explosion’ during the war.
Some settlers were so severely wounded they collapsed and died shortly after taking up their blocks.
The 1925 Report of the Royal Commission on Soldier Settlement would identify injuries and disabilities of soldier settlers as one of the critical factors contributing to the high proportion of failed holdings.
As well as building farms, soldier settlers built communities.
In previously settled areas, the Western District and the Goulburn Valley irrigation district for instance, the government bought estates for soldier settlers where towns and villages already existed.
In new areas, most importantly the Mallee, soldier settlement encouraged the establishment of small towns and villages.
Settlers came to town regularly, sometimes two or three times a week, to buy goods, attend meetings, meet government officials and take part in sporting events or public entertainment.
For soldier settlers, meetings of the Returned Soldiers Association were a particularly important outing.
For women, meetings of the Country Women’s Association provided companionship.
On the farms, a deeper sense of community developed.
Here, neighbours were essential to the routine of daily work and entertainment.
A Selector took up a Mallee block of 750 acres (303 hectares) in 1923.
The Closer Settlement Board made cash advances to him to employ labour, but he also relied heavily on his neighbours.
And they relied on him.
Every harvest, he found time to help his neighbours strip, bag and sew their wheat.
Machinery was regularly shared and, at planting and harvest times, combine drills, reaper binders, and harvesters moved between properties.
Neighbours were also critical in times of crisis, such as injury or sickness.
Today, more than a century after the establishment of the scheme, descendants of soldier settlers are still on the land.
The experiences of World War I soldier settlers paved the way for the next generation of servicemen, who returned from World War II.
These soldier settlers benefited from the important lessons learnt from the previous scheme.
Applicants were carefully selected, given accommodation on their blocks, awarded a basic living wage and given extensive agricultural training.
Better support for physical and mental health was also provided. It helped that world prices for agricultural products boomed in the post-war period.
In most cases Crown land was allocated to Australian returning soldiers who in order to buy or lease such a block were required to be certified as qualified and to remain in residence on that land for five years.
In this way remote rural areas set aside for such settlement were guaranteed a population expansion which remained to increase infrastructure in the area.
Soldiers who were successful in gaining such a block of land had the opportunity to start a farming life in several rural activities including as wool, dairy, cattle, pigs, fruit, fodder and grain.
These initial land allotments resulted in triumph for some and despair for others.
The success of the program increased after World War II when the infrastructure required for these new farmers was improved as a direct result of learning from the mistakes that came during and after the first attempts at such settlement.
After World War II, the Soldier Settlement Scheme was refined in the light of past failures.
Blocks were bigger, were more carefully selected and roads, housing and fences were supplied to prospective settlers.